


A Futile Hope

by dankalloy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cruciatus Curse, Crucio, Dark Arts, Defense Against the Dark Arts, Gen, One Shot, Short One Shot, Tortue, professor carrow, student neville longbottom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 05:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15041486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dankalloy/pseuds/dankalloy
Summary: In an ever-darkening world, Neville Longbottom is faced with his seventh year at Hogwarts House of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Defense Against the Dark Arts class--now, really just the Dark Arts--is particularly challenging, as they're to practice the Cruciatus Curse upon fellow students. Neville will not stand for it.





	A Futile Hope

      Neville stared into the eyes of the terrified second year. She was trembling, looking up into his calm face with an intensity that almost unnerved him. He couldn’t do it.

       Or, rather, he _wouldn’t_ do it.

       “Come, now, Longbottom,” Amycus Carrow sneered. His vulgar breath washed over Neville’s face; he fought back bile. “You, of all people, know how to do it.” Carrow laughed, a mocking, grating sound that stroked the anger in his chest to an inferno. How dare he speak of his parents like that? As if he could think of anything else, trapped in such proximity to this foul spell?

      “Alright, coward. Have it your way.”

      Amycus thrust him roughly aside. He towered over the girl, who was now openly sobbing in terror. “ _Cruico!_ ”

       Her screams filled the dungeons; Neville cringed, as did most of the other students. Some, however, leapt forward with looks of glee upon their faces, watching eagerly as the girl slumped to her knees, still screaming, and lay writhing in agony. Carrow released her; she lay, panting, on the stone.

       “Damecous, come here.”

       A surly-looking fourth year walked toward him, chin held high.

       “Maybe it will help if you know what he did wrong,” Carrow said, his eyes flashing dangerously toward Neville. “This boy was caught in the fourth level boy’s bathroom, magicking into the wall all sorts of graffiti. Defilement of the school, Longbottom!” He cackled manically.

       Suddenly sobering, he looked Damecous full in the face. “Don’t try to run away. I guarantee it will hurt worse that way.” He waved his wand menacingly.

        The girl, all but forgotten, scampered away as Carrow pulled Neville into place in front of his prisoner. “Now, punish him.”

         The boy lifted his head, daring Neville to hurt him, a gleam of mockery in his eyes. “Go on,” he said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

         Neville’s eyes hardened, and---he dropped his wand at his feet.

         “I won’t do your foul magic. Piss off.”

         Carrow let out a houl of rage. “Damecous! It’s your lucky day! Role reversal!” A crazed look gleamed in his eye, and his mouth was deeply set in anger. “Show him his worst nightmare.” He threw the boy’s wand to him, harder than was necessary.

          “ _Crucio_!”

         And suddenly, there was pain; a thousand white-hot knives, piercing every inch of his body, a brutal beating of his flesh and innards, and stinging as if from millions of insects. It all hit him as one, torture beyond belief—and yet, his mind was relatively clear. Neville refused to let out a single noise, lest Carrow be satisfied. For endless minutes, he struggled, his eyes streaming, his lungs bursting; he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t comprehend anything but the pain and the urge to not let it break him—

       It stopped. He drew a gasping breath. Strangely, he felt whole, as if the pain was already a distant memory. Every time he became more used to it, although there was no getting used to it; it was an odd paradox. He almost welcomed it, feeling the pain that had made his parents gone mad—

        Rage such as he’d never known before pounded into him, rage that he was here and the resistance was not, rage that nothing he did mattered, that he was not important, and rage that he was so unfairly orphaned, although even that wasn’t proper—no, he received no pity, only a hollow shame from strangers who recognized his surname, and was reminded every time he saw his parents of the horror that was his family’s past—having dead parents was better than having his.

        As soon as he thought it, he felt immense guilt.

        Unthinkingly, reacting as if to erase his last thought, he jumped to his feet. Carrow opened his mouth laughingly, perhaps to call another round upon him.

        Neville lunged.

        He attacked as a Muggle, without magic (which was just as well, considering his wand was lying still on the ground). He clawed at his eyes while a string of terrible cusswords rent from his mouth.

        He was easily thrown off, once the shock of the attack had worn off; Carrow flung him to the ground and slowly thrust his arms away from his body, sitting on his knees.

        “I’ll show you mercy,” he said thickly, his face red as a tomato, “purely because you’re mad as your parents.”

         Neville started struggling and cussing again; Carrow spit directly into his face.

         “Don’t think I’ll let you forget this, though.” He pulled out his wand and put it against Neville’s cheek. “ _Secare!_ ”

         A deep, searing pain cut into his cheek. Some people let out gasps of despair and horror.

         He felt blood pouring freely down his face and it seemed as if his skin was no longer elastic; it simply fell away from his face.

         “Now, somebody must help Longbottom to Madam Pomfrey,” he said insidiously. “Quickly, else he’ll die. He’s losing a lot of blood.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized that in the Deathly Hallows, Neville says, "We're supposed to practice the Cruciatus Curse on people who've earned detentions"; he then explains he refused to do it. I thought about how traumatizing it would be for him, to have to suffer the same pain that caused Alice and Frank to lose their sanity, and how that would affect him emotionally. So I wrote the scene to my own imagining! As always, thank you for reading!


End file.
